With the advent of electronic postage meters, it has become possible to offer meter customers a large number of optional features. Each additional feature, however, creates a larger number of possible combinations of features. Therefore, in order for a meter company to provide a large selection of features, it must maintain a large inventory of meters. This is costly and inefficient. In rental or lease markets, the inventory problem is increased by customer demands for a replacement meter of like features when the meter in service is damaged or fails.
A customer needing to replace the meter or wanting to change the features on his meter must wait for the agent of the meter company to obtain a meter having the desired set of features. If the agent does not have a large inventory, it becomes necessary to have a meter configured at the factory. Therefore, any attempts to reduce the number of meters in the pipeline will adversely affect the length of time necessary to service the customer's request.
In another approach, the meter company may provide external devices that include all the desired features, but are disabled in some manner. Although this approach provides great flexibility, it does not provide much security. A customer may easily be able to enable unauthorized features himself by inspecting and manipulating the devices or by observing an agent enabling or disabling the desired features. Furthermore, an agent may enable the desired features without notifying the company. As a result, the company may have a large amount of lost profits due to unauthorized feature use.
Furthermore, electronic postage meters have made it possible to offer meter customers the feature of remotely adding postage credit (remote setting) to the postage meter. This feature enables the customer to more readily and conveniently remotely set the amount of postage in the meter. Extensive procedures and controls are used to insure that the postage amount is remotely set only when authorized. For example, the customer is usually required to enter a long code that varies each time the meter is remotely set. However, there may be a time delay between the time customer first initiates the process of obtaining the remote setting code and the time the customer receives the remote setting code. In addition, the customer may not be able to remotely set the meter due to a low customer account balance. Moreover, such procedures are not infallible, particularly when the postage meter has been stolen and in the possession of a persistent person.